Fit For a Queen: Her Majesty Queen Sirikit’s Wardrobe Created by Pierre Balmain

Her Majesty Queen Sirikit and Balmain

Balmain designed for Her Majesty a wardrobe of daytime, cocktail, and evening dresses and outerwear to suit virtually every occasion. He knew the special considerations shaping the Queen’s choices and framed his proposals accordingly: Her dresses must carry the stamp of enduring elegance, and guard against the risk of becoming antiquated.

Many of his signature designs flourished: jackets and dresses with small ties across front or back, obi-like sashes wrapped around the waist, draped effects at hips and waist, the lavish use of bows, and large silk flowers on lapels or bodices.

As well as designing and making Her Majesty’s dresses, Balmain was charged with coordinating the choice and purchase of all her accessories, for which he worked closely with both internal and external sources. Her Majesty’s hats were provided by Balmain’s in-house millinery department, and were usually coordinated with specific ensembles. The fur coats, stoles, and trim in mink, chinchilla, and broadtail, needed for fall and winter in Europe, were also made in-house by furrier Claude Wittelson.

Pierre Balmain

Pierre Balmain was born in 1914. He abandoned his studies in architecture to pursue his lifelong interest in fashion design. His apprenticeship in couture began in 1934, when he was hired as a junior designer by couturier Edward Molyneux, who was then at the height of his career and a leading exemplar of the sleek, elegant, and tasteful aesthetic of the 1930s. Balmain trained for four years with Molyneux. His own assessment was that Molyneux had inspired him with a lasting fondness for the color beige and “a horror of gaudy details.”

Balmain then went on to work as designer with Lucien Lelong. More an editor than a designer, Lelong employed Christian Dior and Balmain to design the house collections.

By the end of World War II, Balmain was ready to strike out on his own. He found a premise at 44 rue François 1er in the fashionable 8th Arrondissement (still the company’s headquarters) and showed a modest first collection on 12 October 1945, “based on the theme of luxury combined with simplicity, and a slight touch of the East”—a concept that could be applied to much of what he later designed for Her Majesty.

Balmain’s palette that season emphasized yellows; browns; grays; clear red; several shades of blue; and white and black, either alone or in combination. A wide variety of patterns appears, including polka dots, a favorite of Balmain’s.

Thai national dress

Balmain, along with François Lesage, who had provided the embroidery for Her Majesty’s formal clothes, remained closely involved with the development of H.M. the Queen’s style.

Balmain designed the Western-style clothes for Her Majesty’s continued international travels, and he and Lesage soon began to make Her Thai national dress as well.

Beginning early in the 1970s, Balmain and Lesage’s work extended to developing strategies to transform Thai villagde silks into fashionable Western attire, which was worn by Her Majesty promote the work of Her SUPPORT Foundation.

Evening dress, 1960

This dress shows Balmain’s love of 18th-century European modes and decoration in the style and placement of the scrolling embroidery and the gown’s wide-skirted silhouette.

Evening dress, 1960

Made of Lesage-embellished French lace, this gown was worn on the 1960 tour to banquets, the theater, and other formal events in Belgium, Germany, Norway and Spain and later in Thailand.

Evening dress, 1960

Silk and metal-thread brocade (phaa yok) and Thai silk. Although Her Majesty often chose to wear Thai national dress for formal evening events on tour, Balmain also made several Western-style evening dresses for Her from the same traditional Thai court brocades used in Her national dress.

Evening dress, 1960

Although Her Majesty often chose to wear Thai national dress for formal evening events on tour, Balmain also made several Western-style evening dresses for Her from the same traditional Thai court brocades used in Her national dress. This dress is a Phaa Yok with silk and metal-thread brocade.

Evening Dress, Marly, 1962

A featured gown from Balmain’s spring 1962 collection, Marly was pictured in fashion magazines and modeled in several newsreels, one of which is on view in the adjacent gallery. Her Majesty took it on a state visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1962 and wore it at home until at least 1966.

Evening dress, 1963

Her Majesty first wore this simply cut, shimmering gown in Tokyo in May 1963, during a state visit to Japan. The occasion was a banquet given in Their Majesties’ honor by Emperor Hirohito.

Evening Dress in Thai National Style, 1964

Bodice of Thai silk with sequin embroider. Skirt of silk and gold-meta thread brocade (phaa yok). Balmain and Lesage began making Her Majesty’s Thai national dress around 1963, bringing several variations to the styles established for the 1960 tour. This one, commissioned for an official visit to Austria, adds solid-color Thai silk to the usual brocade, plus a second trailing shoulder cloth and flat, sequin embroidery.

Evening Dress in Thai National Style, 1967

Jacquard-woven silk and metal-thread brocade with crystal, bead, paillette, and silver-metal thread embroidery for an official trip to Iran in April 1967.

This mandarin-collared, sleeveless variation on Thai national dress is made from a European silk and metal-thread brocade completely concealed beneath a layer of Lesage’s characteristically complex embroidery.

Evening dress, 1979

Her Majesty continued to collaborate with the House of Balmain. This dress is made of ilk ikat (mat mii) with bead, sequin, crystal, and silk floss embroidery.

Pillboxes

Most were either small pillboxes or turban; larger hats were worn tilted back in order to reveal, rather than conceal, Her Majesty's face.

Hats were still considered a necessary element of a Western royal wardrobe

Maison Balmain's in house millinery department made them for most or all of the daytime attire that HM the Queen worn in the West during this decade. Many of those hats matched specific ensembles.

Evening shoes

For evening, HM the Queen was especially fond of the metallic leather pumps with upturned, Asian-style toes that were fashionable in the late 1950s and early 1960s.